


Nursing Wounds

by Spiralled_Fury



Series: Nurse AU Stories [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon 2012)
Genre: ASL, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arson, Dark Harry Osborn, Dubious Morality, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone's really sad, Fire, Gay Harry Osborn, Harry-centric, Helicarrier (Marvel), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Knives, Loss of Identity, M/M, Masks, Minor ok, Moral Ambiguity, Origin Story, Past Harry Osborn/Peter Parker, Plague Doctor Mask, Post-Season/Series 02, Protective Harry Osborn, SHIELD, Selectively Mute Harry Osborn, Self-Destruction, Stabbing, THIS SHIT IS WILD, Team as Family, The Author Regrets Nothing, Underage Drinking, Vigilante Harry Osborn, Violence, im back on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiralled_Fury/pseuds/Spiralled_Fury
Summary: The Helicarrier goes down, and Spider-Man goes down with it.Knives and a mask make revenge sound like a viable option.
Relationships: Ava Ayala & Peter Parker, Harry Osborn & Peter Parker, Harry Osborn/Peter Parker, Luke Cage & Danny Rand & Ava Ayala & Samuel Alexander, Luke Cage & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Danny Rand, Peter Parker & Luke Cage & Danny Rand & Ava Ayala & Samuel Alexander, Sam Alexander & Peter Parker
Series: Nurse AU Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794313
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	Nursing Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> So, I joined a USM discord server, and THIS AU came out of it. 
> 
> Welcome to the Nurse AU. It's horrible and sad and you will be depressed. Anyway, im probably gonna post some random shit from it? Oneshots and crossovers etc. It's pretty fun actually. 
> 
> Figured I'd post some random things while I'm working on big project.

The new player on the streets comes out of left field, on the heels of the Helicarrier crash. 

The first time they manage to find any sort of actual connection, is when they spot the distinctive collection of knife marks that carve through a child molester’s back.

Strikes are clumsy, like the person doing it doesn’t know how to properly hold a knife. 

Four bodies turn up with similar markings, and for all the clumsiness of the knifework, there’s no evidence. There’s nothing that can draw them to a culprit. 

By body seven in under four months, SHIELD takes the case from the police because this is starting to look like vigilante work more than anything else. 

Each attack is carefully premeditated, and seemingly, random. The guy, whoever he is, just goes after... whoever horrible he happens to find in a week. 

The only connection each attack has is that every person is a truly awful human being that has seemingly no permanent conviction. 

It takes them seven months to even get a witness, and a maybe moniker for their newest street watcher. 

“...Th’ boys down at th’ buildin’ call him ‘Nurse’.” The elderly man, an old gangster by the looks of it, nods firmly to the agent who asked the question. “‘cuz he comes on down t’ th’ streets, an’ he heals wh’t’s not good.” 

There’s the first report of someone surviving Nurse’s attack just days after that. 

The guy describes a skinny man, no identifying things, because the guy wore this ‘hideous mask’ and had enough knives to fill Caesar’s stab wounds. 

A week after the guy gets out of the hospital, a neat folder filled with printed paper - reports of physical and sexual abuse on the man’s wife - appears on the nearest police station’s doorstep, and ten minutes later, his house burns to the ground in a gasoline pyre. 

All the evidence says is that it was started intentionally. Nothing more.

Nothing could be pinned on Nurse, whoever the _fuck_ he was. 

* * *

Ava, Luke, Sam and Danny were tight knit before the crash. Now they barely interact with anyone else besides each other, holding hands at odd points and clinging to each other in subtle ways, needing some sort of grounding connection. Anyone who made fun of them got beat up. They just wanted their port in a storm.

Because their port disappeared, in more ways than one. 

Despite their longing for Spiderman, the school’s longing for Peter Parker seems even greater. 

Flash doesn’t even talk to anyone for a week, breaking his hand punching a locker in when he first learns of it. He’s like a twisted, funhouse mirror of his formerly loud personality, quiet and contemplative, exercising to some vague point beyond collapse. 

MJ all but pulls into herself, only speaking when she has to, before coming out of her drowning depression with a vengeance. She works herself to the bone in a desperate attempt to serve others, and ignore her own needs. 

And Harry...

Nobody really talks about what happened to Harry. 

Suddenly his grades are perfect. Suddenly, he seems... stable. Less go-with-the-flow, more anchored to whatever he wants to call life. Some people call him a fucking ungrateful bastard, because suddenly he seems more steady when everyone else’s foundation has been rocked to it’s core in the face of their new reality.

Reality that’s a lot less bright than when Peter was there with them.

Ava notices though, when Harry sits at the top of the stands by the football field, legs curled against his chest and arms wrapped around his knees, staring into the flickering heartbeat of a Zippo’s flame. 

Harry never seems to react to her watching, not outwardly anyway. He thinks it has to do with the fact that he’s lost to the world in general like that. 

He’s more focused than anyone’s ever seen him, but he’s also more lost. She supposes she knows exactly how that feels.

* * *

The first time that the Team sees Nurse, it’s when Batroc decides to get back into robbing banks. 

The team rushes in, of course, but by the time they get there, it’s to witness a skinny person in a black coat whip a throwing knife into one of the mechanical leaping legs, and Batroc stumbles with several swear words. 

Sam lands directly in front of Batroc’s followup hit, and braces a moment before throwing the Frenchman back, letting Powerman catch the would-be robber. Then he spins to face the person standing behind him. 

A birdlike, bone white mask tips, and Sam feels a shiver run down his spine as perfectly round, emotionless black eyes examine him like he’s an interesting piece of meat.

Nurse tucks a black-painted throwing knife into his coat like a professional, then turns back to Sam. The head tips the other way, and then Nurse holds up his hands to show that he carries nothing, then limps forward and around the hero easily. 

Sam doesn’t stop him. 

He goes over to where the others are cuffing Batroc, shows his hands again, then removes his knife from the leaping leg with a deft yank. 

“...Thanks.” Luke says softly. The only response he gets is a subtle nod before Nurse tucks the knife back into his coat pocket and vanishes into the alleyway, as fast as he came. 

Sam silently hopes he never has to look into that damn mask again, but knows it’s a false hope.

* * *

Nurse appears more frequently as the months go on, and by almost seven months, he starts appearing at higher and higher impact targets too. 

Not for the first time, he sees Nurse takes a solid hit. Luke can hear the faint crackle of Nurse’s ribs when the skinny guy takes a slap from Scorpion’s tail, landing on the ground a few feet away. 

Luke punches Scorpion and dodges the sting that tries to follow, defensively moving back a few steps. He knows that he’s vulnerable now, knows he’s left himself wide open, and he prepares for the hit.

And then black boots wrap around Scorpion’s waist like a snake, and Nurse has put a knife into the juncture of his shoulder, between slats in his armour. Scorpion screams, tail going to take a stab at Nurse, only for Nurse to grab said tail on the strike and drive a hunting knife through the area closest to the stinger, immediately ripping the blade free.

Irate, Scorpion reaches to grab Nurse, but Luke sees his opening and rushes forward to drive a fist into Scorpion’s solar plexus. Ava pounces on Scorpion’s side, and Nurse yanks his blade out of Scorpion’s shoulder just in time to avoid being driven to the ground with the armoured villain. 

While Luke and Ava are busy pulling the armour from Scorpion’s body, he takes note of the ruined stinger. The shot had been practically perfect, stabbed through the slats of metal, into one of the joints on the armour. 

He looks up, and notices that Nurse, while off to the side and barely noticeable, hasn’t left yet. He’s sitting on the trunk of an unharmed taxi, one arm braced around his ribs carefully, looking around. 

There’s a tired hunch to his shoulders that has nothing to do with injury. It’s more like he hasn’t slept in a day or two, and now he’s exhausted and needs a rest. 

Luke leaves Ava and Danny to finish cleanup, walking over to Nurse carefully. The mask tips slightly toward him, an acknowledgement. 

“...Y’know, SHIELD would probably patch you up if you asked.” He says. It’s as much of an offer as he can give, the only olive branch he has to extend. 

It gets Nurse to look up a bit, and for the first time, Luke feels like he can read something in those pitch eyes. 

Nurse slowly, silently, shakes his head. 

Then he makes a wrapping gesture around his own chest, and points to his mask.

_’I’ll handle it myself,’_ Luke gathers from that, and nods to him. 

“Well, whenever you... need anythin’.” He says warily. 

Then Nurse does a gesture that looks like a handshake, followed by a point at Luke. 

_’Thank you.’_ Luke realizes.

“You’re welcome.” He says in return, and walks away. 

The next time he glances back, Nurse is gone. 

* * *

They’re fighting Juggernaut at about ten months when Nurse gets tossed to the side, into Danny. 

The impact has to hurt, even when Danny’s the one on the bottom and he takes the brunt of the hit, but Nurse rolls to his feet almost instantly, shaking his head out and lunging forward again. Danny has to remember that Nurse is the full human, not meta or enhanced or anything. 

Even he has to take a second’s pause, charging his chi, before going back into the fray. 

Which is when he sees Nurse take something from out of his coat. It’s bright pink and oddly noticeable against his black gloved hands, but suddenly, it’s sailing through the air and lands on Juggernaut’s shoulder and arm, bursting into a spray of clear liquid. 

A second later, Nurse slides under a punch the size of a Christmas ham, and then tosses a _match_ at Juggernaut. 

It takes less than a breath for the liquid to burst into flames. 

Unstoppable force is, apparently, freaked out by fire. 

Immediately he reels back, trying frantically to pat himself out, while Nurse turns to the others, shrugs, and then sweeps an arm out in a half-bow toward the distracted Juggernaut. 

Danny doesn’t approve of firebombs against villains, but he also isn’t dumb. 

He lunges first, and the others follow him up. 

Nurse hangs back, not willing to get himself knee-deep in flames, which, Danny approves of. Nurse is a normal human, just a guy with some sort of... something.

There’s a certain aura of loss around him, an emptiness that Danny doesn’t want to approach. It’s a bottomless pit, and he worries about falling in. 

Then again, he supposes, he’s not much better. 

His own energy is weaker, tired, sad. 

For the first time in a long time, Danny has to wonder if this is what depression feels like. He’d almost forgotten. 

He doesn’t like it. 

* * *

Nurse has good reaction time, and Ava figures that’s the only reason he’s still alive. 

By the time he’s been on the field for a year, he’s skilled enough to be recognized as a threat. He’s not particularly strong or even fast, but he has maybe the fastest reaction time she’s ever seen on a human, and he _clearly_ does his research. 

Namely because the first thing he does when Electro shows his face is whips another balloon at him, but this one’s just water. 

Electro shocks himself continually throughout the fight, which is distracting to him of course, and results in them finding an easy victory. 

But it’s when they take Kraven, and Nurse takes a slash across the shoulder that goes _through_ the coat, Ava finds herself reminded that _he’s not special._

Nurse stays pretty withdrawn throughout the fight, his left arm held low at his side, but he doesn’t make any death-defying lunges that should kill anyone else. 

He does, however, throw a knife that lands in Kraven’s forearm and results in him missing a strike on Ava, and then trying to chase Nurse, who might be smaller and wounded, but he’s got good instincts in sliding under a car and going to evade the followup strike. 

“Nurse!” Ava shouts, and makes a gesture for him to get closer to them. 

Nurse, without hesitation, obeys the order.

He shoots around a lamp post, neatly kicks off a car, then skids into place behind Ava, who catches Kraven with a solid strike to the jaw, right a second before Sam shoots down and rips into the fight with a bitterly twisted jaw. 

It’s after the fight when Ava and the team see Nurse take the arm of his coat off and twist to see the damage done. 

He’s in a long-sleeved black shirt too. It looks thick and heavy, but nowhere near the safety of Kevlar or something similar. 

“...You need a hand?” Ava asks softly. 

There is a very long moment where Nurse clearly considers it, but then sighs and shakes his head. 

“Y’know, we won’t ask you to take off your mask.” Sam adds. Because SHIELD might, but this guy has saved their asses more than a few times. A well-placed knife is a stunningly useful thing. 

At that, Nurse looks up, then, very carefully, he nods. 

He doesn’t take off the hood of the coat, or his mask, or most of his shirt, but he sits still while Ava tries to pull the shirt away from the wound. Then he pulls out a knife and just... cuts half of it away, allowing her access. 

They patch him up, all while Nurse just sits there, silent and considerate as his shoulder’s bandaged up. 

“There we go.” Ava says finally, stepping back. Nurse nods, standing up and pulling his coat back on carefully.

He touches his fingers to his throat, below the beak, and gestures forward at Ava with a flat hand. 

_’Thank you’_ , in ASL or as close as Nurse could get to it. 

“...No problem.” She answers. 

Nurse just puts away his knives and walks off, vanishing behind a corner a bit away. 

* * *

Sam has learned over the last year and a bit that the mask is stunningly expressive, when it wants to be. 

Down and slightly tilted, Nurse is thinking about something. 

Up and slightly tilted, he’s listening. 

Straight forward, he’s focused on you. 

Straight forward and very tilted, he’s trying to ask you a question.

Angled down, he’s angry.

Angled down and very tilted, he’s very, very angry. 

But when Goblin shows up for the first time since the crash, Sam has to wonder what the twitching, shaking mask and hands that keep curling and uncurling around his knife mean. 

Goblin lands on the ground with a laugh, taking a hit from Ava easily before spinning and-

Suddenly, all the careful calculation that Nurse has had in _every other fight_ goes to the wind, and Nurse leaps onto Goblin and drives his blade straight into the supervillain’s back. Goblin growls furiously, ripping Nurse off and throwing him to the ground, but Nurse rolls to his feet and shoots for him again. 

The first words that Sam hears Nurse speak, after nearly a year and a half, are a hoarse growl;

“You _took_ him from me.” 

The knife flips around in Nurse’s hand, and abruptly, he leaps forward once more. 

Nurse gets in the way more this time. It’s not a pleasant thing for anyone, to watch him get bounced off the concrete every ten seconds, but Nurse doesn’t _stay down_.

It aches, because it reminds Sam of Peter. Peter never stayed on the ground. 

The result of the fight is Goblin retreating, covered in a multitude of scratches from Nurse’s knives, and Nurse covered in Goblin’s blood and his own, bruised and kneeling on the ground, coughing through broken ribs. 

Sam slips him an address subtly. 

The team’s secret safehouse when they don’t feel like dealing with SHIELD or anyone else. They found and built it up after the Helicarrier crash. It’s where they spent the city’s Memorial Day for Spiderman, because none of them could face the outside world. 

“If you... need a place to heal up.” Sam says quietly. 

Nurse nods and limps off. 

Sam flies down to the safehouse a day later and finds Nurse sleeping on one of the beanbags, mask still on and everything. 

It feels like vindication. 

* * *

Nurse speaks but rarely, Luke comes to discover.

A soft, “Thank you.” when Luke gives him a protein bar at the hideout. A quieter “Yes,” or “No,” depending on the question and the day. He isn’t really conversing but he is speaking, and Luke counts it as a victory. 

They don’t tell Nick that Nurse hangs around them, though they’re sure he knows. All they know is that no SHIELD agents show up to the hideout when Nurse is around. 

A ‘borrowed’ Wii from the Tricarrier occupies the TV most of the time while they’re in the hideout, their own private getaway from any sort of chaos. 

“Hey Nurse,” Luke calls out from where he’s playing bowling with Sam. “we’ve got a third controller, you want in?” 

Nurse’s head tips down and slightly to the side, and then nods. He walks over quietly and removes his coat.

They remove masks and costumes in the hideout, and while Nurse didn’t quite do the same, the whole team knows that Nurse has frizzy auburn hair from when he takes off his coat. Sometimes it’s too long, and then he’ll turn up a few days later with his hair shorn down to a reasonable length. 

Luke hands him a remote, which he loops neatly around his wrist, and they select characters. 

Nurse’s cursor hovers oddly over Peter’s old Mii, but then selects Guest B without further incident. 

The game is quiet, but it’s pleasant. There’s a sort of camaraderie there. Nurse loses the game to Sam though he wholly schools Luke, but that isn’t surprising. Luke’s always sucked at bowling. 

It’s when they’re sitting on the couch afterwards and Nurse tips his head slightly toward them. 

“Thanks.” He says softly. “For letting me stay.”

“No problem.” Luke says with a gentle nod. 

They turn on some random TV show, and no further words have to be said about the whole thing. 

* * *

Danny has to admit, he doesn’t enjoy being around Nurse but tolerates it for Luke and Sam. The pair seem to actually like Nurse, or at the least, they’d like to get to know him better. 

Nurse’s aura is too... broken. Too tired. Too angry, and Danny doesn’t like sitting near it. 

But it’s after a fight, when Nurse is standing off to the side, that Danny picks up something _else_ in Nurse’s aura. 

It’s like a relaxation. A relief. A sort of calmness that comes with understanding something wholly and totally. 

So Danny approaches him, looks out over where Nurse’s face is turned, and tries to see what he’s seeing. 

“Can I ask you something?” Danny questions, and Nurse simply nods, an acknowledgement as any. “...How did you start doing this?” 

There’s a long, quiet pause, wherein Danny wonders if Nurse is actually going to respond. He looks away from the battlefield to the east, like he can see through every building, like he’s memorized wherever he’s looking in picture perfect. 

It takes Danny a moment to realize he’s looking to where the Helicarrier crashed. 

“...I did it because a friend of mine once talked a lot about responsibility.” Nurse says with a soft, longing tone. 

Another stretch of dead silence before slowly, Nurse turns back, and his gaze meets Danny’s.

For the first time, he’s close and still enough for Danny to see the blue irises under the mask. Cold, narrowed, bitter. 

“I’ve come to realize that revenge and responsibility are very, very similar.” Nurse says. 

The words are a promise, but they contain an exhaustion that Danny hasn’t heard in a long time. Nurse gives Danny a soft nod, then walks off when he has nothing left to say.

Danny only catches him rubbing the dogtag on his hip for a moment. 

* * *

It’s halfway through the second year with Nurse when... when something happens that makes the whole team wonder what the hell is going on. 

Nurse kills Goblin. 

It’s sort of a surprise to... everyone involved.

They had been fighting Goblin in the outskirts, and it was a sloppy fight, with the misty rain and low clouds turning the dirt field into a mud pit. This time, Nurse seemed to be actually working with them. He was good about obeying orders when someone gave them to him, and he was good about being where he needed to be.

So when he jumped on Goblin’s back, yanked his ear to the side, then sank his knife into Goblin’s throat, it was sort of a shock to the system. 

Even Nurse seemed surprised as Goblin choked, hand slapping up to his throat to _try_ and keep the blood in as he stumbled to the side. Then Goblin dropped to his knees as Agents rushed in and tried to stabilize him. 

The whole team just sort of stared while Nurse staggered backward, blood dripping off his knife, before he turned and vanished into one of the abandoned warehouses that litter the outskirts of the city.

Goblin bleeds out and dies on transport. SHIELD keeps the details close to it’s chest, and there’s no surveillance or witnesses to prove what really happened.

As... stunned, as the team is, there’s an odd sense of relief that thrums through them. Peter’s murderer is dead. 

They go to the hideout, still dirty and wet and in costume, and if _Danny’s_ the one who pulls several small bottles of hard liquor out of his bag, nobody comments on it. 

The first few shots are had in dead quiet, a toast to Peter, his memory, and to Nurse. 

They’re interrupted by a subtle knock on the door. Everyone freezes at the table, considers what to do, before a voice comes through, “It’s me.” 

Sam gets up and lets Nurse in. 

He’s dripping wet from the now-downpour that’s going on outside, and he’s still got mud on his boots from the fight. 

Sam just pulls a chair out and Nurse takes off his coat carefully, like he’s in agony just moving, and hangs it on the back. They put a glass in front of him and fill it up, despite knowing that Nurse can’t eat or drink with the mask on, and he won’t take it off with them around. 

For a while, they all sit there, staring into their respective liquids in silence, until Nurse reaches up and grabs the beak of his mask. 

Slowly, carefully, he peels it off, completely silent as it slides up and off his wet hair, blood-soaked gloves leaving red streaks on the white leather of the mask. 

He places it to the side like he doesn’t want to let it go. 

Harry Osborn sits in front of them and taps his fingers on the glass of cheap vodka in front of him before he picks it up and slams it back. He only grimaces slightly when he sets the glass back on the table, tired blue eyes flicking between all of them. 

“...Nice to meet you, Nurse.” Sam says softly. 

Harry looks at him next, then softly, takes a deep breath. “...Thanks.” He returns. 

It’s Nurse’s voice, soft and hoarse, tired and weak and determined all at once. 

They drink in silence after that. They drink to Peter, to the man who made them who they are. They drink to the Goblin’s death, because finally, finally, Peter can rest at peace, avenged. 

The others drink and think of their teammate, their friend, their mentor.

Har-... 

Nurse drinks, and he thinks of his love.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me squeal, I love kudos!!! 
> 
> If yall have a prompt of a situation for Nurse, POST IT, I might write it so PLEASE


End file.
